Crater of Diamonds State Park has started a historical project to find workers who were employed by the Martin Plant, a commercial industry for processing diamonds.
The mining plant was on the property that is now Crater of Diamonds State Park near Murfreesboro.
“As the final major diamond processing operation, the Martin Plant is an important historical remnant. It is the only one of the four large processing plants that remains still partially standing. During this spring, we will be developing a new interpretive area above the site of the Martin Plant,” said Margi Jenks, a park interpreter.
“Public input would be helpful in several ways as we start this project,” she said.
The park has photos of workers, and Jenks is attempting to determine the names of those employees.
“Although the 1940s are over 60 years ago, it is possible the 20 or so local mine employees, or their descendants, have reminiscences of the plant’s operation. We would love to add their accounts to the plant history,” Jenks said.
“If anyone has their own photographs of the plant, we would love to scan those for our archival collection,” she said.
The history of the diamond mine explains why commercial mining stopped.
“With the Great Depression of the 1930s, commercial mining ended, because at that time, jewelry was the only use for diamonds,” Jenks said.
However, in the late 1920s, the drill bit industry started to use hand-set diamonds in tungsten carbide drills.
“By 1940, about 25 firms used diamonds in grinding and cutting tools, and in 1941, at the beginning of World War II, diamonds were declared a strategic mineral by the U.S. government,” Jenks said.
“The attempts to again begin commercial mining at the Arkansas diamond mine mirrored the trend toward industrial uses. First, the mine owners tried to interest the U.S. government in funding renewed diamond mining in Arkansas. Then, they tried to interest the Ford Motor Co. in the diamond mine. Both of those attempts failed, but in 1945, the mine owners contacted Glenn L. Martin, owner of the Martin Aircraft Co., and this time they found an interested party,” she said.
After a three-year struggle to organize the Diamond Corporation of America, Martin’s employees began building the Martin Plant on April 1, 1948. The first 40 yards of ore were processed later that year Sept. 27-28.
The final building cost was $170,000. During the next year of operation, the plant processed 80,000 cubic yards of ore. It recovered 800 diamonds, weighing a total of 246 carats.
Only 10 were gem-quality, the largest a 4.5-carat stone. The appraised total value of $984.50 was not enough to cover the $10,000 it cost to run the plant for one month.
“With such disappointing results, on Nov. 17, 1949, Glenn Martin dissolved the Diamond Corporation of America,” Jenks said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 12/28/2013